Dry run complete. Same room, same time, same test structure.

Coming from the world of checklists and precise procedures, it’s tough to adjust to considering 65% on a multiple choice battery “good” – but that appears to be the nature of this beast for me.

This is how Claudia saw me in 2008:

This is how she sees me at the end of my first year in law school:

I asked her to give me four months and feed me nothing but lemon broth, baby carrots and teeny tiny ice chips.

In response to an undergrad, who asked about attending law school if he is not sure he wants to be an attorney:

The reason or reasons any of us choose to attend law school vary widely, I’m sure. What they all have in common is that they are personal. Not to be evasive, but I think that each individual has to come to the decision after hitting all the wickets in the decision making process, which will be unique for each candidate.

For me, it’s about the education. I am not sure where this will lead, but I know this: legal education is rewarding for me, and it was the right call at the right time for me.

Many of the men and women I admire have law degrees, and many of them are not attorneys. One mentor is a former JAG attorney who set up a boutique firm in Colorado, then went on to fly airliners and represent pilots to management, the FAA and – most recently – Congress. Others are developers and visionaries who find themselves working in professional sports (particularly baseball). Not everyone attends law school to be become a practicing attorney.

As a young man growing up with dreams of flight, the airline life was rewarding, but unequivocally linear – there was a clear path. As a former airline pilot and current aerospace professional, the future is less finite, but still rather linear. With a legal education, the future appears more alluvial. I like that.

Most programs are expensive; all are rigorous. There are direct costs for all students attending law school, and indirect and opportunity costs unique to each student. You should carefully consider each of these before you commit.

But I think the question to consider is not necessarily “Do I want to be a lawyer?” Rather, “Do I want a formal legal education?” The answer to the latter was a resounding YES for me.

I recognize that this is contrary to many opinions expressed in blogs and credible periodicals, and by a fellow CWSL blogger (who is reasonable and thoughtful). If the education is merely the means to the end of being a practicing attorney, then I agree with my colleague: don’t go to law school unless you want to be a practicing attorney.

For me, the education is an end. It is an integral part of a personal awakening that I recognized first from the vantage point of my father’s shoulders. I want the education. Of course, I measured the costs: direct (tuition, books, parking, coffee), indirect (impact on my marriage, my relationship with my kids, my friends), and opportunity (business school looks less likely).

Having measured these questions carefully before attending, and reviewing the costs at the end of my first year, I am comfortable with my decision to attend.

The value of the education is proving far greater than its cost.

-Dave

My study partner got mad and permanently defaced my casebook. Tempers get a little short around finals.

We had disagreed on a point of law, and carried the debate into class several days later. When she was vindicated by the professor, I was obliged to admit to the professor and the class that my partner was right, and that *gulp* I was wrong.

It was humbling.

This can’t be good for my eyes.

20/15 when I left the airline cockpit. Now, I can’t drive in the rain at night without my glasses. I pulled off the road on the way to dinner last week because I left my glasses at home. Claudia took over. With the glare from the wet roads, the cars ahead didn’t look like individual cars, but molten lava.

I blame law school.

Remember to factor the costs of a new prescription and lenses if you start law school after 40.

About a week until finals. Civil procedure is good, clean fun: chess with more pieces. But, sometimes, the best way to go after it is from under a REALLY BIG conference table.

Still a couple weeks from finals.  Trying to get my arms around Civil Procedure.  Sometimes, the best way to go after this stuff is on a REALLY BIG conference table.

A couple weeks before 1L finals. Sometimes, the best way to go after this stuff is from a reclined position.

I blog for Cal Western because the first contact I had with Cal Western was the student blog, which helped me decide to attend.  I was honored to be invited to share my experience with others who might find their way to Cal Western the same way.

My decision to attend law school after 40 was really just a delayed decision from 24: this is something I have always wanted to do.  Looking back, all the jobs that I have done I could have done better with the education I received in just my first year at Cal Western.

If you are on the fence, drop me a note.  My situation may not be the same as yours, but I might have a perspective that can give you some insight.

The sun sets slowly between Yawkey and Lansdowne

One day a week, on Sunday morning, I go to church.  I put on the grand uniform for what may be the last pure expression of a game that has otherwise utterly failed me, or promises to at the next turn of leaves, and I stand alone on green grass and red clay beneath blue sky, and I pray.  I pray for the innocence that I have lost and the innocence that my children have lost or soon will.  I pray for the sun to stay behind that cloud, or emerge to illuminate a ball that turns fat and beautiful.  I can count the laces.  And I am young.  And I am lithe.  And I go the other way.  And I go five for six, with a double off the wall.  I round first, and my legs do not burn; my heart does not hesitate; my eyes do not squint.  The left fielder and center fielder are disappearing into the gap.  I go in standing up.
 
I stand on the outfield grass for lefties – maybe three paces if there is no one on base – one pace for a rightie, if the guy can go the other way.  Most of these guys can.  I pray for a hard liner, not too high, a little to my right so I can haul it in and flip it for Tom to throw around the infield.  I’ll get it back on the turn as a nod to the effort.  I’ll tip my hat and dry my forehead as I come up on the clay, maybe arc a C in the soft top dirt with the toe of one cleat, slash back through with the other. I’ll settle for a sharp two-hopper. 
 
There is no crowd, no noise other than the muffled half-clap of Jim from the dugout.  I have heard it for years, echoing from 1987 – soft, distant.  Jim’s message came out of the blue during the public dissection of my marriage, my finances, my life: “Do you want to play baseball?” 

Yes.
 
In the field, there is no distraction at all: no cases, no fact patterns, no falling barrels of flour, no 10-year-old girl with 68 stab wounds, no drunken ex-husband who stomps out the viable child in his ex-wife’s womb, no grades, no real disappointment at all – only the fictional disappointment of the loss, or the very real fading of the light and the years and our lives and loves.
 
But I skip games. ’Depends on the schedule, really: what we have going that particular Sunday. 

Some days we go to mass.  The kids crawl over us and we try to remain calm, keep them quiet and attentive.  We don’t hear what the priest says most days.  But that is okay.  We are at mass.  It’s kind of like church, but less spiritual.